Green Beer Not As Good As It Sounds

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday January 23, 2008

with GLEN HUMPHRIES

Touting your product as carbon neutral has become a huge marketing ploy. Even the alcohol industry is getting in on the act.

Several wine labels - including Margaret River's Cullen Wines - have qualified for carbon neutral credentials, and at least one other label has been pushing the environmentally friendly nature of its wine in those cardboard Tetra containers.

Now it's the turn of beer. Barefoot Radler, from Lion Nathan, is a new beer on the market and it's touting its credentials.

"Barefoot Radler is," the company's website says, "the first beer product in Australia to be certified carbon neutral by the Department of Climate Change".

On top of that they offset the carbon created by brewing, packaging and distribution. Buy a slab and the carton has been 100 per cent recycled - a six-pack is 75 per cent and the bottles include at least 30 per cent of stuff that's been used before.

As the website points out, it means you can drink Barefoot Radler secure in the knowledge that your beer has not added to global warming. So you can get a nice inner glow because you're helping the environment while having a beer.

Now, while it's nice that the company is helping Mother Nature, what really matters is whether the beer is any good. Because if it's crap they could have saved precisely the same amount of carbon by not making it in the first place.

Well, if you like drinking shandies, then Barefoot Radler is for you. Because that's what it is - lemon and lime soft drink mixed into beer.

New Zealand's Monteiths (one of the finest makers of beer in the world) make a radler as well but their version at least tastes a bit like beer. The same can't be said for Barefoot's version.

The Barefoot version is an alcoholic soft drink - an alcopop for people who don't like to be seen drinking alcopops. It doesn't taste like beer. The 15-year-olds are going to love it ... and anyone else who buys beers on environmental credentials rather than taste.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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